Eternal Youth of Nature

Sunday, September 19, 2010

A Tidepool Quiz

Time for a quiz. Can you find…Red Thatched Barnacles? Smaller Barnacles? Limpets? Green Algae? A Sea Anemone covered with bits of shell? Small Sea Anemones? A Chiton? Red Algae? A closed California Mussel? A tiny open California Mussel? It is amazing how many living creatures are in a 6” x 8” area of the Intertidal Zone ecosystem. All of these creatures and plants are related and depend on each other for survival. What do you depend on to survive in your ecosystem?

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A Green Sea Hare

Here is another California Sea hare. But, look how different the color is from the earlier Sea Hare picture. I wanted to show you that animals that are the same species can look very different. In your classroom, you have humans in your class with black, blonde, red, or brown hair, Sea Hares can be different colors, too. What color algae do you think this Sea Hare eats? See how it looks like there is a hole above the Sea Hare’s head? Actually, there are two wing-like thingies that are folded over each other and they make a sort of “tunnel.” Like a fish, the Sea Hare has gills. Water enters the “tunnel” and passes over the gills. The gills absorb oxygen from the water. This is kind of like breathing for humans. Then the water squirts out the back, out of that tube or siphon on the back left. This little blob of a creature has many interesting features that help it survive in the Intertidal Zone.

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The Spiny Lobster

I found this Spiny Lobster resting in the tide pool. I thought it was dead, so I touched its head to see what it felt like. IT MOVED!!!!! It sent a BIG SHIVER down my spine! The unfortunate lobster was injured, but very much alive. Let’s take a look at the different parts. See the two short antennae sticking out in front of the eyes? Those help the lobster smell things. Then see the very long curved antennae? Those can “feel” the water moving. So they can feel a predator approaching and hide. Or they can feel nearby prey and attack. It has legs for walking. It has a tail that can curl up quickly. When it curls up, it shoots the lobster in the opposite direction of danger. The biggest difference between a lobster from Maine and one from California is that the Maine Lobster has the big claws. The tail of the California Spiny Lobster is edible and so delicious that laws had to be made to protect the lobster population. Lobster will eat just about anything, dead or alive, as long as it fits in its mouth. A female lobster will lay, on the average, a half a million eggs! It’s a good thing. That means more lobster for you to eat!

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What is this thing that looks like a hard honeycomb? It is a clump of shells of the Worm Snail. But an animal cannot be a worm and a snail at the same time. The animals that made this shell cluster are gastropod mollusks, or snails. “Gastro” means stomach and “pod” means foot…stomach on the foot. Mollusk comes from the French word “mollusque.” It means an animal that makes a shell out of calcium carbonate. When we think of a snail, usually, we think of the little animal with a curled shell. The shell of the Worm Snail is kind of long and wiggly, so it makes people think of a worm. This big chunk of shells broke off of a rock. When the Worm Snails are living on the rock, they ooze out a sticky “net” of mucus. Plankton stick to the net. The Worm Snail brings in the net and eats anything that stuck to it. Hooray for the Worm Snail, which is hard at work purifying our ocean water!

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A Hermit Crab in a Different Shell

Remember the Blue Banded Hermit Crab that was using a Black Turban Snail shell for protection? Here is different crab, and it has found the empty shell of a Poulson’s Rock Shell Snail. I just wanted you to see how different the shells can be in a tide pool. When it was alive, the Poulson’s Rock Shell Snail would eat barnacles and mussels. How could it get through their hard shells? The snail would ooze out an acid and then scrape the shells with its radula until it made a hole. Then it would scrape out the soft animal with its radula. The Poulson’s Rock Shell Snail was probably eaten by a crab. Do you see the three small limpets? They are not Owl Limpets. They are called Mask Limpets. They are much smaller than Owl Limpets and they are marked differently. We see that, in tide pools, there are many creatures in the same class, but they may look different from each other. Just as you are in the same class with your friends, you look different than they do.

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Our State Fish: The Garibaldi

This beautiful orange fish is the state fish of California, the Garibaldi. This picture was taken right off the coast of Catalina Island. As you can see, it lives around rocks near the Kelp “forest.” The Garibaldi can grow to be about a foot long. The interesting thing about this fish is that the male makes the “nest.” He chooses an area on a rock where the eggs can be laid. A female passes by and decides, “Hmmmm, he did a good job. He made a nice nest area.” She lays the eggs and leaves! The male stays and protects the eggs from predators. He will even approach human divers if he thinks the eggs are in danger. He hangs around for a few weeks and then the eggs hatch. The babies grow and become red with blue spots. For a while, the numbers of Garibaldi were decreasing. Can you think why? They were stolen! Humans would trap the fish, hide them in containers, and sell them back to people who wanted Garibaldi in their salt water aquariums. Now, the fish are protected by law. People have to pay big fines if they steal Garibaldi from the ocean. If you ever get a chance to go to Catalina Island, do it. When your boat docks in the harbor, you will look down and see orange flashes just below the surface of the water. These orange blurs are the Garibaldi darting around in their territory. There is an orange fish about every 20 feet along the coast, welcoming you to the Intertidal Zone of Catalina Island.

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Garbage and the Ocean

Oh my gosh, don’t get me started about garbage. Actually, this plastic container could have wound up here in a number of ways. Someone may have tossed it off a boat and it may have floated back to shore. Or, someone walking through the tide pools carelessly tossed it. Or, it may have come from YOUR GUTTER? You may be thinking that it is impossible that a piece of trash at the beach came from your street gutter. Let me explain. Any oil or antifreeze liquid or transmission fluid or car wash detergent on your driveway winds up in the ocean. Any cardboard boxes or glass bottles or plastic wrappers that sit in your street gutter wind up in the ocean. It’s hard to believe, but it’s true. Your street gutter is like a playground slide. Toxic liquids and garbage flow down the gutter into holes that lead to huge pipes under your street. Those huge pipes go all the way to the ocean. ANYTHING in the pipes winds up getting poured out into YOUR OCEAN! You might be saying, “OOOOOOOH, YUCK!” You are right to be saying, “OOOOOOH, YUCK!” Some of you may have gone to the beach to swim and play. Do you want to play in an ocean filled with oil? Do you want to swim and get hit in the head with a candy container? Maybe you have not been to the beach. But, do you enjoy eating crab, lobster, fish, oysters, mussels, or shrimp. All of these things that you eat have come from the ocean. Do you want the things you eat to come from an ocean filled with transmission fluid and plastic grocery bags? There are things you can do to help keep the ocean clean. Tell the adults that you live with and your friends to put all garbage in garbage cans. Tell the adults that you live with and your friends to wash cars at a self service car wash. Tell the adults you live with and your friends to make sure their cars do not leak oil, transmission fluid, or antifreeze. YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE AND HELP KEEP YOUR EARTH CLEAN AND HEALTHY!!

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